Category: Round The World 2004

I did get to Twizel quite easily, a small one horse town really but pleasant enough. Set off next morning in bright sunshine up Mt. Cook, but by the time I got there it was raining pretty hard, just over the mountains. It did stop and I took a hike up a trail in the foothills, but the clouds never lifted enough to get good views which was a shame. Again though I was close enough to hear the cracking and see the landslides in action on the snow, ice and scree slopes.

Drove on to Christchurch for my final night, and managed to net a nice room with jacuzzi once more. Flew next morning in a clockwork aeroplane to Wellington, they don’t even bother to search you or X-ray your hand baggage on this, I suppose they reckon the plane is so small that it would just bounce off if somebody hijacked it and flew it into the side of a building. Flew straight onto Sydney, and have been hanging around a few old haunts which brings back lots of good memories! I looked at my old apartment block with envy as I walked past, how the hell they ever let me live there I’ll never know!

Today I’m on my way over to Manly, you could almost sit on the beach as the winters here are so nice, but it’s actually a bit cloudy and threatening today.

I pushed on to Te Anau in the end, as it’s a deceptively long way all the way to Milford Sound from Queenstown (over 300 Km) and I’m glad I did in the end, Te Anau is in a beautiful setting on a lake and I got a lakeside motel room complete with family-sized private jacuzzi. Had a small shocker in the morning when I learned that a big dump of snow had hit the mountain pass between Te Anau and Milford Sound, but off I set anyway, having equipped the Mazda with a set of snow chains. The road only opened at 10am, but by the time I got to the worst part they’d done a pretty good job of clearing the snow so it wasn’t too bad. There was am rather annoying delay of an hour or so whilst you queue up waiting for a bloke to check that you’re carrying chains, otherwise he sends you back.

Took a cruise down the Sound once I eventually got there, it is certainly a lovely spot, but cold. My limited winter clothes I’m carrying were just enough to keep my vaguely above freezing point, along with endless cups of tea. The good news is that the rain held off and it was mostly sunny, which apparently is a rarity in Fiorland, they get 6 metres of rain a year! Drove back to Te Anau to the same motel, as I fancied a bit more jacuzzi action, and today I’m on my way probably to Twizel which is close to Mt. Cook. I’m in Queenstown again at the moment, it’s a glorious day here too and tempting to stay, but time is against me so I have to move on.

My lovely Mazda teleported me over Arthur’s Pass to the West Coast, and I spent a night in Greymouth in a rather splendid motel unit with 5 rooms including a private jacuzzi. Heading down the coast next day I stopped at Franz Joseph glacier which extends to within a few miles of the sea, then Fox Glacier (nothing to do with the mints) a few miles further south. Franz was the more impressive of the two I think, and I went right up to the end of it and climbed a little way up the ice itself. You’re not meant to do this of course (sorry Mum!) as indicated by the signs reading “Pass these ropes and there is a high likelihood you will die” or words to that effect, but whilst there’s plenty of rocks falling everywhere it’s fine as long as you don’t get too close to anything tall. The cynic in me thinks that they partly say this in order to get you to go on their guided trips up the ice, but anyway…. It was well worth it though, as you get to hear the thing cracking and groaning, which in conjunction with the falling rocks definitely lets you know it’s alive.

Stayed last night in Wanaka a little way north of Queenstown, and this morning I drove over the somewhat hairy mountain pass to Queenstown itself where I am now. It’s strange to see all the snow capped moutains at such close range, but it’s not too cold, at town level it has been just over freezing even in the evenings.

I’m now debating what to do next, it would be nice to spend a party night in Queenstown, but I may press on further south to Te Auna (or something) which is a closer striking distance to Milford Sound.

The game was quite an experience, the All Blacks won of course, 41 – 7, but the Pumas got an early decent early try for a level score for a time which was fairly exciting until the All Blacks scored their next 3 tries within about the next 10 minutes. I had a nice position behind one set of posts and manage to survive all the jibes I was getting about how so much better Argentina is at rugby than England is. Hard to argue against, really!

Made it to Waitomo Caves the next day, and went for the 330 foot abseil into the cave option…. It’s most interesting when you stand at the top on this little platform looking right down into the floor of the chasm, which you could barely see that day as there was some fog in the cave! Luckily the ropes were long enough and I made it safely to the bottom, then you hike up into the cave proper where you can see thousands of glow-worms on the ceiling when you turn your lights out. Then there was the small matter of climbing a vertical 160 foot ladder and a steep climb out.

As soon as we’d disrobed from that and was comfortably settled into the bar for a post-pantwetting celebration drink with the other bloke that was there, the heavens opened, and decided not to close until next morning. So instead of doing the fairly long haul back to Wellington in the mower (which alledgely has ABS incidentally, which leads me to think they either: a) stuck a label saying “ABS” in the back windscreen, or b) the brakes are so shagged they can’t go on hard enough to lock the wheels anyway) I decided to divert to Taupo, a nice little town on the banks of the massive Lake Taupo. Next day we had the luxury of sunshine and so I cruised all the way back to Wellington, where I spent the next day wandering the streets and reminiscing about the time that I was there for a few weeks back in ’01. Stayed with Karen from work and met up with Dale who I used to work with in Sydney.

This morning I’ve flown over to Christchurch on the south island, an interesting journey in itself as we got as far as the runway before having to turn back as Christchurch was totally fogged in. Then it cleared a bit, we took off and circled for about an hour before landing as it was fogged in again. I’ve picked up a new car, this time a brand new Mazda, as I’m a bit unsure about going over the mountain passes in a mower. Last time I hired a new car I wrote it off after just 1 Km, in this one I’ve already done 8 Km without incident, so things are looking more hopeful. I’m going to nose about Christchurch for a little while, then head west over the famous Arthur’s pass to the west coast, along the line of the Tranzalpine railway. the plan to head down the west coast, there’s some big glaciers extending almost all the way to the sea there, then come back across through Queenstown and perhaps Dunedin before heading back up the east coast.

Cruised across to the west coast in my trusty lawn mower, down a very beautiful stretch of coast and then into the Waipoua Kauri forest, a sort of rainforest place with loads of weird big trees. Then I drove down to Hamilton, one of the larger north island cities and decided to hole up there for the night. It seems to be a very happening place actually, more so than Auckland or Wellington as far as I can see. I’d forgotten, but the All Blacks vs. Argentina match is being played here tonight, as the prop had told me on the plane a few days back. So at vast expense as all the motels are booked, I’m staying one more night and have got a ticket for the game! At least I’m staying around the corner from the game so can crawl back with any luck.

Tomorrow then, I’m hoping to get to the caves as planned, then try and get to Wellington, if the car can make it that far. I’ve changed my flights again, now I only go to Sydney next Wednesday morning, but this is a good thing really as it means I can get to the south island here without having to rush too much now.

PS. Nice job, Greece!!!

Popped into “The Shakespeare” for a quick one before hitting the backpacker bar. Met some guys who were arguing about how thunder gets caused (after the big hits on the Sky Tower that morning), and had a $10 bet on it. They asked me for my pathetic opinion on the matter to try and settle it, and I ended up playing pool with them and their mates until 3am, so missed out on the backpacker night, never mind.

Picked up my quality car next morning, it’s older than me and has more dents than a golf ball, but it seems to go OK. The main problem is that it only has as AM radio, so all I can hear is Christian radio and talk radio. After just one afternoon of driving, I can recite much of the bible from my head, and I know considerably more about sheep than I did before.. Drove up to Paihia in the north, in an area known as The Bay of Islands, as it is a bay with 144 islands (so it’s not just a stupid name). It is absolutely beautiful, and I’ve splashed out on a lovely motel with a room with balcony overlooking the ocean, king size bed, kitchen, Sky TV, etc, to make up for 2 nights in the dorm!

Today I took a fast boat out into the harbour, this thing has 1400 horsepower and can do over 50 knots. They took us through the “Hole in the Rock” (also not a stupid name) and fairly deep into a cave and generally around the islands.

I’ve decided to cook in tonight, last night’s search for a restaurant ended up in true Matt-style disaster. There was a place which I liked the look of but was obviously closed, as there was some kind of sign in the door. Now, the street is not well lit so I couldn’t read it, so walked across the front yard to the door. After about 3 steps, massive floodlights came on and a ridiculously loud alarm system goes off which flashing blue lights and the whole works. I decided to do the decent thing and ran off. 5 minutes later I found a bar and went in there, I could still here the alarms from there when I went in! The floodlights did let me read the sign though, which said “Closed for annual holiday, do not enter yard or the alarms will be triggered”. Handy information. I wonder if they were on a beach in Bali or somewhere, when they got paged to say someone was trying to burgle their restaurant?

Will watch Portugal whip England in bed tomorrow morning, then head south back past Auckland towards the Waitomo caves.

Well I’ve suddenly remembered why I’ve not been doing dorms so far. At least they’re nice people and hardly snored, but still difficult to get a moment’s peace. The good side of that is without sleep I was able to get up in time for the 6:45am kick off of the England/Croatia match, which was a good thing given that it was such an entertaining game.

Breakfast was quite a shocker, literally. I was in the caff when two enormous lightning bolts hit down overhead, I assume hitting the Sky Tower which was about 300 yards from where I was. That’s the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. This was followed by marble-sized hailstones so was quite a spectacle.

I hit a couple of bars last night and finished up in the backpacker’s brothel bar in the basement of the hostel. Here is where you get 2 pints of snakebite for the price of one, etc. etc. You feel a bit like a ship trying to avoid mines in World War II when you leave the hostel in the morning, expect in this case the mines are pools of puke. Tonight’s special down there is “girls get your tits out” night, so me and these 2 German geezers from the dorm have decided to give it a second chance.

Oh I also forgot a new small claim to fame. The Argentinian rugby team were on my plane from Santiago, I got chatting to one of the props a bit who told me they are playing the All Blacks on Saturday. You have to laugh, these guys were crammed into the economy section, but of course they have no chance of fitting into the seats so they congregated in the galley instead and tried to pull the Lan Chile air stewardesses. Can’t blame them I suppose, they just got crushed by Wales I think so need to do something to cheer up.

Here I am in Auckland, a miserable long flight of more than 14 hours, but we were into headwinds of more than 150 mph. Luckily I was caning the wine and champagne in the airport lounge before take off so managed to get a good few hours sleep. I was right in a daze when I arrived here, and sat for at least an hour in the airport with no idea of what I was meant to be doing… Quite a relief to get to an airport where you don’t get assaulted by 500 taxi drivers as soon as you get out of the door though, although the way my brain was not working I could actually have done with some one whisking me away to their crap hotel. I’d lied convincingly to the customs and agriculture people, by answering “no” to all the questions about whether I’ve been on a farm recently, in rural areas, or in contact with any non-domestic animals. I think I’d destroyed all proof, the only thing that may have rumbled me is if they’d checked the pictures on my digital camera, for example the one of me riding a horse on a farm in a marshland, or the one of me handling a live alligator in the middle of a jungle might just have given the game away.

Now I’m in the town centre, and things all seem a bit more familiar as I did once spend an afternoon in Auckland for a business meeting. I’m going all out and doing the hostel thing here for a change, so we’ll see how that works out. I’m bound to end up with some bastard(s) who snore(s), but I should be tired enough to sleep through anything I expect.

Today I’ll make a plan or two, I’m erring towards the side of hiring a car, they seem reasonably cheap here and make my way gradually down to Wellington. But first, coffee and a shower…

I got to Valparaiso today, but it was rather cold today so not a great day for sitting about on the coast. It’s a very hilly place, and they have these unusual “ascencores” which are like steep funicular railway lifts everywhere. They’re dodgy looking to say the least, and ironically on one of them there is a set of stairs alongside it which are free to climb, or you can pay for the ascensore – I would pay extra for the privilege and security of using the stairs if they’d ask!

In the airport now and about to board for Auckland. It’s late on Saturday night and I’ll land on Monday morning, so Sunday will never exist for me, obviously a consequence of crossing the dateline which I’ve never done before. So if your birthday happens to be tomorrow, sorry, I’m going to miss it 🙂

Moved hotels last night, and am now in Las Condes area of Provedincia (thanks for the advice, Morten!) There’s a lot of nightlife up there as I discovered when cruising around a few bars until about 3am. Today was gorgeous T-shirt weather, and I went up the funicular railway that leads to yet another Christ statue thing on top of a big hill. Not anywhere as well presented as the Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro, as it’s surrounded by aerial masts and stuff, but you get a really good bird’s-eye view of things from there. There’s a disgusting thick layer of pollution hovering all over the city which is somewhat alarming, to know that I am now breathing that in. From the top, a gondola cable car thing leads down the other side across quite an impressive park. It leads through a lot of trees, but they don’t bother to trim them much it seems, so the car ploughs into branches as you go along which makes it very safe, obviously…

Tomorrow I think I will try to get to Valparaiso on the coast, my flight only leaves at 23:30 or something so I think I can do this and still get back in time to catch the flight. As long as I don’t have another 3am session tonight which is always possible…! If I get to the airport in time I might have time to watch TV, as I did in Manaus airport, another classic that slipped my mind. Whilst waiting at the gate they were showing the Discovery channel about an air crash investigation, then as we filed through the door, right under the TV, they showed the reconstruction of the two planes crashing head on, I kid you not…